The Guelph Poetry Slam team is fundraising to get to CFSW (Canadian Festival of Spoken Word) to rep Guelph at the National Poetry Slam! This year it takes place in Saskatoon, SK! With 3000km between Guelph and Saskatoon, we are fundraising a dollar a kilometer. Based on our current donations we are in Parry Sound (285km from guelph, $285 funds raised)! We have a goal of reaching Thunder Bay by June 14th (1,438 km from Guelph, $1,438 funds raised). If you can spare a loonie or two or more, please contribute to the team’s journey at indie-go-go. Rest assured that the team is putting in a ton of work to bring in additional funds. Total team costs/fundraising for the year is $7,000.

In light of recent events and conversations in the National Spoken Word community, Guelph Spoken Word has decided to develop a policy that includes a clear and transparent grievance process. We have come to feel that it is imperative to have a mechanism in place to process conflict, complaints and/or instances of grave harm that are brought to our attention.
As the Guelph Spoken Word board strives to develop and provide this new resource to our community, we would also like to recognize our limitations as volunteers; in regards to capacity, training and financial resources.
The Guelph Spoken Word board is currently reaching out to other spoken word organizers and local organizations to learn about their policies, best practices and processes. As a board we will review this information and other examples that come to our attention to draft a policy of our own. It is our intention that this policy can be used as tool, in our interest to continually improve the Guelph Spoken Word community.

If you have examples that you would like considered in our development process please
e-mail them to bethanne@guelphspokenword.com